


The Fruits of Winter

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, HP: EWE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nature's plenty is suspended for the year, and will not come again until the next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fruits of Winter

It happens after Michelmas, when the world is becoming cold and the first hint of frost has etched the pane-glass windows with feathery patterns. Remus has eaten the last of the summer blueberries from the ice box, and has hunted through the marshes for wild goose-berries, coming up empty-handed. Here, on the edge of nowhere, it doesn't matter. Nature's plenty is suspended for the year, and will not come again until the next.   
  
It is desperately unfair, and Remus has resigned himself to a winter fed with crustless bread and store-bought milk, watching the supply of tinned soup dwindle and disappear. He hasn't the money for more – hasn't ever had the money, but he resents it more this year. His life was not supposed to end this way.  
  
It happens after Michelmas, when Remus has eaten the last of the blueberries. He sees the stranger out of the corner of his eye – a black, hunched figure digging in the tiny garden that Remus made out of the marshy soil. There are some potatoes left, a few sparse carrots, winter foods that Remus was hoarding for another day. The thief makes off with them, running as soon as Remus shouts.   
  
It doesn't matter, but it should. Another man has eaten because of Remus's garden, has fended off the pangs of winter hunger, and Remus tries to make himself glad for the man and his full belly. It should matter.  
  
Tonks is gone, and the world is cold, heading toward winter, and the war is over.   
  
The thief comes again after the full moon, when Remus's bones ache and he hasn't the strength to chase him. There aren't many potatoes left by then, just the knobby few that Remus hasn't dug up, just the leavings of the harvest. Enough for a spare meal – enough to keep life going – and Remus can't begrudge the thief that much.   
  
His own dinner is only bread and milk, but Harry sent a package with Chocolate Frogs, and Remus opens one in front of the fire, warming his toes and savouring the sweet. He tries to be grateful, but Harry has so much – he has the whole world before him, his entire life to live now – and this is Remus's world, a cottage on the edge of nowhere, and he prefers it to be silent and lonely. He doesn't need chocolate or reminders of the world.  
  
He has had enough.  
  
The third time the thief comes, Remus is out in the garden, staking a tarp over the one rosebush that survived. It's a spindly little thing in this cold Northern soil, not vigorous enough to produce thorns, but Remus has watered it all season, and will not lose it to the frost if he can stop it. One more warming charm reinforces the tarp, and he's turning, brushing his hands clean on his trousers, when the thief comes.  
  
A dark figure, swathed in a dark robe – hunched over and slipping under the fence and into the potato patch – without seeing his face, Remus knows him. He would have died with this man.  
  
"Hello, Severus."  
  
The thief gives him a wordless snarl – and Remus is the one that is supposed to be the beast – and Remus catches him with a spell before he can flee. "Come in and have some tea."  
  
Severus is sallow and skinny, his flesh stretched taut over his bones, and he snarls at Remus again, more than once. Death does that to a man, wraps him inside out and forces him to the edge of himself and beyond it. Remus had Harry and his earnest young friends to help him, but no one has cared for Severus and set him straight after he awoke in the Shack. No one brought him back to himself.  
  
Remus shows him how to wrap his fingers around the mug of hot tea, and how to cook the stolen potatoes in a pot of boiling water. Severus is afraid of the fire, at first, and it has been so cold. Too cold. Remus warms his hands and brings him a thick blanket and, when Severus still flinches away from the sparks, douses the fire and sets him up near the warm Muggle radiator.   
  
He'll do anything to get some heat into Severus's bones – anything to stop him from shivering. Remus tries not to think too hard about what that _anything_ might entail, what it might mean if Severus won't stay in from the cold and stop shivering. This is the only task he has left, saving Severus, and there's no one else to do it. It has to be Remus.  
  
The last of the blueberries are gone - all of the fruits of summer are gone – but Remus has bread and milk and potatoes, and he feeds Severus all he's got. It must be enough to warm him, for Severus stops shaking for a moment and he looks straight at Remus and thanks him. It must have been enough to warm him.  
  
In the morning, Remus wakes to find Severus gone. There's a note in his spidery handwriting, and an empty mug in the sink. The note says nothing – just a few brief words of thanks – but none of Remus's bread is missing, and Severus left his long black cloak behind. Remus smooths the wrinkles from the rough fabric, folding it and setting it aside. Severus will come back.


End file.
